Of course, it is not enough to just sit in the city of sorrow and practice to the death.

In the past month, Long 13 has strengthened the craftsmen he brought from Jiaokou Fort to those craftsmen in Lingshi County, except for refining gunpowder and making firecrackers, the rest of the craftsmen have devoted all their energy to the matter of making earth-shaking thunder.

Yes, at this time, the earth-shaking thunder weighs about five catties, stupid and fat, what you want is shoddy, the gunpowder inside is mixed with stones and iron, and the outer layer of iron shell is made of the worst iron, Lingshi County is rich in coal, and this iron material is obtained from coal smelting iron ore.

In the absence of secondary carburizing of molten iron, the iron sheets made of this iron material show that the surface is honeycomb and can easily burst.

Of course, with the power of black powder, what you want is that it is easy to explode, and the more fragments formed after the explosion, the better.

Then there is the tiger squat cannon, after a period of exploration, Long 13 has tested the best dosage of a fifty-pound tiger squat cannon, and when the Ming army used it, because of the fear of the tiger squat cannon exploding, it will try to put in less dosage.

At this time, Daming was still on the edge of modern science and technology, the darkness before dawn, before thousands of years the Chinese had more experience in craftsmanship, and there were fewer scientific summaries, otherwise they would not have let the Portuguese cast cannons for them.

At this time, if the Spanish phalanx wants to be proficient, if the officer does not know modern mathematics, it will be a joke, because your army is in the field, encountering strange geographical conditions, and when you suddenly encounter the enemy, you must immediately make a decision on the length of the side and the number of platoons of your large phalanx.

At this time, the commander of the large phalanx could roughly calculate the side length and number of platoons on each side by opening the square root, but for the Ming army at this time, it was unthinkable.

It can be said that since the end of the Ming Dynasty, there has been a difference in military science and technology between the two sides, and the gap has become wider and wider in the later period.

After getting the firecracker, Long Thirteen asked for a shot himself, and he asked for the heaviest one.

A fire gun between an ordinary arquebus and a gun, such a gun is one meter six long and weighs fifteen catties, which was originally a product that failed to make a gun, but was picked up by Long Thirteen in that firearms shop.

In the future, he decided to add such a weapon to his arsenal.

Lingshi County had to pay 300 stone black powder to the Shenji Battalion every year, and in the past month, he had spent 100 stone for the soldiers of the Firearms Battalion to practice firearms, tiger squat cannons, and sky-shaking thunder.

From now on, he needed to use it sparingly, but after giving each of the craftsmen a one-time payment of a year's silver and grain, and setting a new salary standard, the craftsmen quickly refined a new hundred stones.

That is to say, as long as they have enough food and sufficient manpower, these hereditary craftsmen in Lingshi County are fully capable of producing 1,000 stone of black powder every year, but they only need to hand over 300 stone every year.

The extra production capacity was apparently sold by the mine supervisor to leather dealers, firecracker dealers, Taoist temples, and so on.

This is Da Ming.

An army is crazy about empty salaries, the industrial and mining industries are crazy about squeezing artisans, the ambassadors of Cao Yun Shangcang are full of fat stomachs, but the grain transported to the capital is pitifully small.

Of course, everyone in this chain is to blame.

In the words of later generations, "Under the avalanche, not a single snowflake is innocent".

Without further ado.

In order to meet the impending storm, in addition to the crazy training of pikemen and cavalry, Long Thirteen's killer weapon is this newly added firearms battalion.

Two hundred firearms, ten tiger squat cannons, and a large number of earth-shattering thunder.

This is the secret weapon he relies on.

But that's not enough.

After the thieves in northern Shaanxi rose up, the Ministry of War transferred Zuo Guangxian, a master of firearms and a garrison of Xuanfu, to Yansui Town, taught the local soldiers to practice firearms and artillery, and transferred thousands of firecrackers from the Shenji Battalion.

In comparison, Dragon Thirteen is really not enough.

However, although Long Shisan's subordinates are all recruits, he is willing to spend money and food on training, but it is difficult for Zuo Guangxian to do it, and it is good that the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion can train with live ammunition three days a month.

In addition, the diameter, length, wall thickness, and smoothness of the bore of each smoothbore gun produced must not be the same, so its range and trajectory completely depend on the experience of the soldiers who use it, and it cannot be fed without a large amount of ammunition.

It is better to train three days a month than once every three days, in that case, the firecrackers still have a precipitation for the accumulation of experience, otherwise they will soon forget it after three days.

Since it's a low-cost, high-volume expendable (firecracker), it is necessary to match them with the same amount of ammo, otherwise it is better to let them practice their spears.

In addition to training and craftsmanship, Long 13 began Tuntian.

Due to the arrival of a large number of thieves, the farmers in Lingshi County have not yet started spring ploughing, but after Long Shisan opened a warehouse in the county seat to release grain, these farmers seem to see some hope, and some people are bold to go down the mountain to farm, and after being disturbed, they are relieved to start farming.

That's not all, Long Thirteen also sent them some silver taels and grain, which naturally made them grateful.

At this time, the fields in Shanxi were divided into three parts of the world, one belonged to the princes who were sealed in Shanxi such as the King of Jin, the King of Dai, and the King of Shen and the children of the royal family such as the county king, the general of the Zhenguo, and the general of the auxiliary state, and one belonged to the gentry class, and only thirty percent of the taxpayers really belonged to them.

After getting the yellow book and fish scale book of the county seat, Long Thirteen naturally let his old camp occupy the fields that belonged to the vassal kings and gentry, and began to cultivate, although he didn't know how long he could stay, but seeing that the fields were barren, it was too evil for these people who were originally farmers.

Later, the vassal kings, gentry's long-term laborers, and tenants came down one after another, and Long Thirteen also allowed them to farm, but they needed to farm with their old camp.

In addition to spring ploughing, after winning the two county seats of Jiexiu County and Lingshi County in a row, Long Shisan also harvested a lot of Xiucai who are studying in the county, as well as some old children who can't even enter the county school (after entering, they are Xiucai) when they are forty or fifty years old.

Those Xiucai were naturally reluctant to "follow the thief", and Long Thirteen did not make it difficult for them and let them all go, but there were still some old boys who took the initiative to take refuge in him.

It's easy to understand that when you read it, you haven't even been admitted to Xiucai until you are fifty years old, either your qualifications are too poor or there are problems with the books you read, and there are naturally many cynics among them.

But in any case, these ancient scholars could at least assist Long Xiaoshi in managing the baggage, soldier roster, etc.

The style of doing business in Shanxi is prevalent, and a considerable number of these people have joined the major commercial banks after repeated failures, becoming bookkeepers, and some have even become shopkeepers.

This kind of person Long Thirteen is very welcome, and he has absorbed a lot.

A month later, the situation seems to be a little more rosy than Dragon Thirteen had expected.

"Big Boss"

After taking the scout team around the circle, Li Zhanchun finally came back today.

"Let's talk about Xue Rengui and Gao Jiaji first, unfortunately, both of them were defeated by Wang Pu, Xue Rengui was killed, and Gao Jiaji's whereabouts are unknown"

"After learning that our battalion had occupied Jiexiu County and Lingshi County successively, Xu Dingchen, the governor of Shanxi stationed in Fenzhou, hurriedly transferred Wang Pu back, and transferred Zhang Yingchang, the general soldier of Shanxi, to Jiexiu County......

Long 13 saw that Li Zhanchun's expression seemed to be a little gloomy, so he said, "Did Zhang Yingchang carry out a scourge in Jiexiu County?" ”

Li Zhanchun nodded, "Yes, when I left, I only took away the family members of the soldiers who had joined our battalion and some craftsmen and scholars, but I distributed Fan Yongdou's property and food to the poor people in the city.

"Zhang Yingchang and the gentry not only robbed the poor people's property, but also killed many people in the name of 'slave thieves', 'head thieves', 'assistant thieves', etc., and robbed their children"

Long Shisanyi's expression was also a little gloomy when he heard this, and he secretly thought: "My heart is still a little softer, it is better for Zijin Liang and the others, and they are willing to take it away if they are willing to follow."

Li Zhanchun continued, "However, many people from the north and south did not follow to Liaozhou, but came to Jinzhong."

"There are also some people who take the risk of coming to Jinzhong because Liaozhou and Qinzhou have too little food, and there are seven or eight families before and after."

"Therefore, Zhang Yingchang, Wang Pu and others have no intention of dealing with us and others in the near future, but go all out to encircle and suppress these rebels."

"Unfortunately, these rebels have all failed without exception, and Zhang Yingchang and Wang Pu have gained a large number of ...... of the rebels' families."

Long Thirteen interjected: "How many are there?" Where are they all placed? ”

"Because Jiexiu County is too close to our camp and is located in Fenzhou, they are very cruel, they kill all the old and weak in their families, and leave behind young men, young women and older children."

"In addition to the women and slaves who were left behind, they were in contact with the Jin merchants to prepare to sell them to Taiyuan or the capital, and the total number was estimated to be several thousand."

Long Thirteen naturally knew that this was not so simple, once it was glued by the Jin merchants, they would most likely sell it to Zhangjiakou, and then resell it to Liaodong as a slave.

"After the mud in the east went south, he soon left Liaozhou, and then joined forces with Zijin Liang and others to take Qinzhou City, at this time, the fierce tiger, Lu Xiangsheng and Luzhou Wei's men and horses were all attracted to the past, causing Liaozhou to be empty."

"These three ministries took Liaozhou together, and the imperial court was naturally furious and instructed Xu Dingchen to go to suppress it"

"What about the people and horses in Taiyuan Mansion?"

"The big boss, Taiyuan City has three guards, but they are all rotten and unusable, they are okay to defend the city, if they want to go out to the field, they have to count on the battalion, so he asked Wang Pu and Zhang Yingchang to divide half of the men, led by Wang Pu, and they have gone to Liaozhou."

"However, Li Zicheng and the others didn't stay there for long after taking Liaozhou, but broke through the solid pass from Jingcheng Road and entered Zhending Mansion!"

"In this way, Wang Pu has to follow closely, and the men and horses left in Jinnan are not enough to attack our department, so we have at least stabilized the situation in the north."

"As for the west, Gao Yingxiang and other departments have been circling in the mountains between the Yellow River and Guji Mountain with Hu Dawei, Zuo Liangyu and other departments, Gao Yingxiang has suffered some losses, especially that Zuo Liangyu, it is said that he is very brave, and he is still above Hu Dawei, but Gao Yingxiang has a lot of people after all, and he still can't resist it for a while, and he also won Yonghe County."

"When Zhang Zongheng, the governor of Xuanda in Pingyang Prefecture in the south, saw it, he hurriedly sent another subordinate subordinate to a lieutenant general named Li Bei, who seemed to want to use Hu Dawei in Shilou County, Zuo Liangyu in Xizhou, and Li Bei in Jizhou, to compress Gao Yingxiang and other troops in a narrow area on the east bank of the Yellow River, and then gather and annihilate them."

"After learning that our department occupies Lingshi County, Zhang Zongheng also reacted, south of Lingshi County is Huozhou, originally only regimental training was stationed, but now there is a battalion of soldiers, the leader is called Niu Chenghu, it is a garrison"

Long Thirteen thought for a moment, "So I have at least a month or two of good days to wait?" ”

Li Zhanchun shook his head.

"Between Lingshi County and Ningxiang County, there is also a hot spring fort, which is a large post station in the mountains second only to Wucheng, but it is now occupied by the Shaanxi general He Renlong, He Renlong, is a famous general, he is estimated to be specially used to deal with us."